“You’re moving to London.” I try to say it so it’s just like the answer to a question, like a fact. I don’t want to sound like Mom, nagging him, he calls it. Mom hates that word.

I can tell he’s looking at me, but I don’t want to look at him. “Let me just get a glass of water,” he says. “I’m dehydrated from the flight.” He goes into the kitchen, and I hear a faucet running, and after a minute he comes out again and sits on the couch.

“Come here, Shorty,” he says and pats the cushion next to him.

My dad always calls me Shorty. I used to like the nickname when I was little but not anymore. Maybe that’s why I don’t move—I just stand there.

“I’ve got to go,” he says at last. “The company I work for has an office in London, and they’ve asked me . . .”

“What do you mean, got to?”

For some reason I know this is one of those times when I can get away with being rude. My dad makes the face he makes when he . . . when he approves of something you say.

“You’re right,” he says. “I’ve decided to go. I’d like us all to go, but your mother . . . has other ideas. Anyway. That’s not your problem. This is a conversation we can have when everybody calms down. We don’t have to decide anything right now. Everybody’s tired, everybody’s hungry. Let me just get cleaned up and we’ll go out to eat.”

My dad disappears into his bedroom and I call out, “I’m just going to see if Jake’s around,” but I don’t think he can hear me. I don’t really want him to hear me. If he can come and go whenever he likes, then so can I.

I take the elevator down and ring the bell. Jake answers the door in his pajamas. Basically, after spending the day in bed—he’s got a cold. School finished a couple of days ago, and the first thing that happens to him is he gets sick. He says, “Jennifer’s here,” when he sees me, and rolls his eyes. “With four friends.” I can hear noises in the kitchen. Anyway, Jake looks pretty miserable, too. He just wants to watch TV.

So that’s what we do, but the girls keep coming in and bugging us. They pretend to think we’re really cute. Jake’s pajama top has a picture of Darth Vader on it. “I love him when he’s dopey,” Jennifer says—she’s got freckles, too, and red hair, and those kinds of braces that aren’t really braces but you can just see a few lines of clear plastic or rubber or whatever they’re made of. Jake is really pissed off with everybody. He isn’t just pretending. Sometimes he gets like that. Most of the time, he’s in a good mood, everything’s great, he’s kind of running the show, but once in a while it’s like . . . he’s run out of gas.